Jim has covered a wide range of issues during the election. They include:

• Greens candidate says Noosa campaign a policy-free zone: http://www.mysunshinecoast.com.au/articles/article-display/greens-candidate-says-noosa-campaign-a-policy-free-zone,25180

• Answers to Noosa Journal’s candidate questions [not published in final edition]: http://www.mysunshinecoast.com.au/articles/article-display/noosa-journals-questions,25195

• Speech to Dying with Dignity Queensland, 21/3/2012: http://qld.greens.org.au/content/speech-dying-dignity-qld

• Development in the Junction: Greens candidate opposes transforming Noosa Junction into fast food hub
  
  
• Working Queenslanders: Noosa Greens candidate backs Queensland Council of Unions’ Charter for Working Queenslanders
  
  
  
• Palliative Care: Palliative care is one of the failures of Queensland Health under Labor.
  
  
  
• Civil Unions: Katter Party & LNP join forces to promise repeal of civil unions
  
  
  
• Seniors: Qld Greens will work to support Seniors in Noosa

• Health: Noosa Greens candidate welcomes Health Launch and Qld Noosa health services require an integrated approach: Greens
  
  
  
• Live Music: Greens candidate supports live music in Noosa
  
  
  
• Dying with dignity: Qld Greens Candidate says jail for assisted suicide is wrong solution
  

• Water: Qld Greens call for return of Noosa’s water supply assets See also:  http://qld.greens.org.au/content/return-water-assets-council

• Coal & Gas: Qld Sunshine Coast Council must oppose coal and gas exploration on the Sunshine Coast To see Jim’s comments on coal, CSG and Food security over the past 2 years see: http://widebaygreens.org/?s=coal and http://widebaygreens.org/?s=food+security

• Election: Qld: Greens ready for March election

• Council: Greens candidate Jim McDonald to attend citizenship ceremony in Noosa
  

• De-amalgamation: Qld Greens candidate says the debate on a new Noosa Council misses the most important issue See Campaign Launch speech:  http://qld.greens.org.au/content/queensland-greens-noosa-campaign-launch and http://qld.greens.org.au/content/lnp-de-amalgamation-plan-fails-noosa

• Noosa Biosphere: http://qld.greens.org.au/content/standing-noosa-biosphere-means-standing-sandy-straits-biosphere

• Noosa’s Prosperity: http://qld.greens.org.au/content/letter-noosa-chamber-commerce See Campaign Launch speech:  http://qld.greens.org.au/content/queensland-greens-noosa-campaign-launch

• In response to an independent candidate’s policy to legalise drugs: http://qld.greens.org.au/content/greens-specifically-rule-out-legalisation-drugs

• Speech to Noosa Parks Association on environmental matters: http://qld.greens.org.au/content/speech-noosa-parks-association

• My 30 second pitch to Mary-Lou Stevens “In the elevator” on ABC Coast FM:
  Noosa voters should vote for me because I am an experienced advocate with vision.
  I’ll introduce a Private Members Bill for a plebiscite so that Noosa residents can decide on de-amalgamation.
  I want a prosperous Noosa that is prepared for the new economy and for climate change, with regional food security, a Coast served by light rail and connecting to fast trains, a region with its own renewable energy sources, and jobs in clean industries.
  I’ll push to get the Noosa GPs After Hours Service put back in the hospital to take pressure off emergency services.
  I’ll oppose any exploitation of the coal reserves under the Coast.
  And I don’t owe vested interests any favours It will be the people I owe.

• 

Jim has been activiely campaigning to get some decent representation of Noosa into the parliament. More information available on the following sites:

• The Queensland Greens website
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Mysunshinecoast.com.au

I would also like to acknowledge the significant efforts of the Noosa Parks Association for 50 years of working to preserve what all generations can enjoy in a sustainable balance of environment and controlled development in Noosa and the hinterland.

This is a balance which, after all this time, remains under threat, especially from the Regional Council. Two of the three previous councils encouraged large scale high rise, transforming Caloundra, Mooloolooba, Maroochydore and Coolum while Noosa  followed Bali’s lead in keeping buildings in a perspective that respected the landscape. And the danger is ever greater because Noosa is under-represented by this Council.

I see it as my task – if I am elected – to ensure that our priorities for Noosa prevail. In addressing the five questions, I’d like to put them into a broad context because they are closely interrelated. That context includes ensuring food security in our region – and I include the Mary Valley beacuse many of you would have campaigned against the Labor proposal for Traveston Dam.

The environmental principles were clear:

• preserve unique or endangered species,
• promote the health of the river, and
• protect the world heritage Ramsar wetlands in the waters of Hervey Bay and around Fraser Island.

Yet some of my political opponents who presented themselves as Traveston warriors for the lungfish, the turtles and Mary River cod are silent as the Labor Government dishes out coalmining and CSG exploration permits along Munna Creek that flows into  the Mary at a major turtle area.

“]

Munna Creek [photo: Jim McDonald

Huge areas have been explored at Tiaro along the Mary. In the Tin Can Bay hinterland, drilling has occurred at the junction of Coondoo Creek and Tanunda Creek that flows into the Mary River estuary. Coalmining is imminent near the Susan River outside Maryborough. It also flows into the estuary and dolphins are not unusual in that river. This is not just something that is happening outside our region. It has imminent concern for those of us in Noosa who worry about the possible degradation of the  environment in our region. Because drilling has been carried out at Wolvi. And that’s in our neighbourhood. Indeed the coalfield that is being explored along the Mary River extends from Bundaberg down to Point Arkwright and from the Blackall range out to sea.

These are resources that the coal and gas industries want so much to get their hands on that they don’t care if they encroach on farms or suburbs, as the industry has done in America. And as it is doing on Queensland farms and in Sydney suburbs. Now.

So a Labor Government which gives free reign to miners and drillers, and an LNP which thought protection of the Mary Valley was important at the last election, will allow the ultimate degradation of our environment sustaining some of the most intensive greenhouse gas production industries. The scientific and anecdotal evidence is incontrovertable for responsible legislation. The least that should be done right now is a moratorium on CSG and the immediate cessation of coalmine expansion. No more coal mines! I will take this up in the Parliament as it is Greens policy.

Despite the Federal Government’s legislation designed to slow down emissions, the perspectives of government at all levels are so narrow that opportunities for better husbanding of the land in progressive agriculture are ignored. We should be looking at alternatives for the fallow land bought up by the Government for Traveston dam, and turning the Mary Valley into a regional food bowl, something that I have been calling for in the past two years. And I heard my own words used by Peter Wellington on the radio earlier this week.

This is a proposal for a regional food security strategy designed to deal with climate change. We get none of that. I see food security in our region under threat not only from coal and gas but also from foreign corporations buying up highly productive land often on behalf of foreign governments as part of their food security strategies while Governments in Australia sit on their hands and supermarkets seem to be moving towards becoming net importers of food.

These failures, in my view, represent a betrayal of our nation interest and a betrayal of responsible management of our resources. Policies dealing with the creation of protected marine areas and sustainable fisheries are also related to food security. The marine reserves gazetted by Queensland Government have minimal or no monitoring and policing. State stewardship of our marine resources moves at a snail’s pace. Clearly, for example, commercial netting along the North Shore beachesis unsustainable.  Recreational fishers tell us that – they have been agitating for protection of fish stock in Noosa waters [note: I had a useful discussion with two local commercial fishermen who put a different perspective that indicated that this statement might be incorrect].

What emerges from what I have so far spoken on is a broad vision for the region. One in which we have rapid, frequent, and environmentally efficient light rail transport systems perhaps integrated with low or no emission local buses. My vision includes a link from the light rail to a very fast train service so that instead of a three to four hour journey to Brisbane we can leave home and stand in St George’s Square 90 minutes later – faster than a car trip on an increasingly gridlocked Bruce Highway. Most freight is taken off the roads and delivered across the nation on a very fast freight network.

It’s a low emission vision that is driven by a regional renewable energy grid powered by wind and solar energy, whose costs are approaching that of coal-fired energy in the United States, supplemented by domestic power generation. In our policy there is a stable gross feed-in tariff rather than diminishing net tariffs, and I would propose methane capture from landfill. At the same time, our energy usage habits will have to change. This is something urgent for this decade.

Just how urgent can be seen from the accelerated effects of melting Arctic ice. Plumes of methane released from the sea bed off Siberia, which two years ago were 100 metres across, have grown to 1 kilometre across. It puts the tentative efforts of carbon pricing in Australia into perspective, especially when methane is a more effective global heating agent than CO2 and could accelerate current warming trends.

In doing our regional bit for the environment, the economy of Noosa and the Sunshine Coast must accommodate cleaner industry with businesses or landlords adopting responsibility for renewable energy on their premises where relevant and implementing
green practices to reduce energy consumption.

Our policies for small business encompass incentives for small business practices, goods and services to become ecologically sustainable such as energy efficiency, accessing 100% renewable, green audits, and seed funding through the proceedings of the carbon tax.

Our specific Energy and Climate measures for greenhouse gas emissions set targets which can be built into lregional planning. These include such factors as:

• A binding target of 50% of GHG emissions by 2020 [we are behind in this target]
• A 90% minimum reduction in GHG emissions by 2050
• Ensuring that reductions occur across all sectors
• Replacing the net feed-in tariff with a gross feed-in tariff to help offset the costs of installing small scale renewable energy systems
• Transferring subsidies and government support (including research and development) for coal fired energy to fund research and development on improving energy efficiency, carbon capture through farming practices and developing competitive, large-scale, renewable energy sources such as geothermal power generation, solar power and wind.

I’ve already mentioned some aspects of creating more marine protected areas and making our fisheries sustainable. These include:

• managing recreational and commercial fisheries to maintain sustainable
• populations, and to minimise the environmental impacts of fishing.
• protection of fish nursery habitat.
• environmentally benign aquaculture industries.
• a strategy to maintain adequate, biologically representative, ‘no-take’ areas within each fishery and/or marine bioregion for the conservation of marine biodiversity and fish stocks.

The key is to put funding into the State budget to enforce legislation governing existing protected areas inside the three mile zone, monitoring catch levels and seasonal bans. That has not happened in any serious way. Even the recreational fishing organisation wants better monitoring.

All legislation ought to be fact-based. Environmental legislation, the protection of species and the fisheries needs to be based on science rather than special interests and the vision has to be long-term for the sake of the generations that will follow us. We need on their behalf to jealously guard the future of our reef fish, onshore fishing, the pelagic fisheries such as the Pacific Tuna, the fish in our estuaries, rivers and lakes, from over-exploitation. And we need to follow the science in determining what percentages of fisheries and species need conservation in marine reserves. Our policy is for 30 percent of Australian waters to be included in reserves. This does not constitute a fishing ban: it is an essential element of a management plan.

My contributions in the Parliament will be driven by this vision for Noosa and the region. A vision that is lacking in the old parties. One that reflects today’s challenges to the vision the Noosa Parks Association has spent the best part of half a century pursuing.

Jim McDonald
Greens Candidate Noosa
Address to Noosa Parks Association
24 February 2012 

Dr McDonald said, “Ratepayers funds helped develop Noosa’s water supply and so it belongs to the community. It should never have been grabbed by the Bligh Government to be corporatised in preparation for selling off another public asset. Lake Macdonald was a Noosa Council project.

“Unity Water has done nothing but slug consumers and adopted practices that look more like a mafia operation: exhorbitant metre reading guesses and residents slugged for costs even if they are not connected to the grid are, frankly, unethical standover tactics.

“Separating Unity Water from the Council is also dysfunctional. Subsided trenches crossing Noosa’s streets remain unrepaired despite the Sunshine Coast Regional Council having just completed asphalt road repairs throughout Noosa.

“In one case, a subsided trench on Hill Street in Sunshine Beach lies unrepaired not 10 metres away from the recent round of resurfacing. The Council claims maintenance of the trenches is Unity Water’s responsibility.

“We can blame Labor for that nonsense. But what does the LNP propose? Their so-called “CanDo” policy States that Glen Elmes’ party will combine Unity Water into an even larger body, claiming it would be more efficient. What that will do is make it easier to sell it off to private enterprise and the LNP should come clean about their plans.

“Not being known for its consistency, the party that tries to tell us that the amalgamated Sunshine Coast Regional Council isn’t efficient for Noosa ratepayers argues for State centralisation of water assets developed by the Noosa Shire!

“In no case in Australia has the sale of publicly owned utilites resulted in cheaper prices for consumers whether they have been sold by Labor or Liberal/Nationals.

“Voters are entitled to straight answers from the LNP for their ultimate plans for Unity Water and other publicly-owned assets. Mr Elmes should come clean and state unambiguously that the LNP will return Noosa’s water assets to a reconstituted Noosa Council.

“The Greens are committed to retaining essential public services in public ownership to be run in the public interest.

“I will work in the Parliament for residents to get back Noosa Council control over the assets their rates paid for.”

Jim McDonald
Greens Candidate, Noosa
Media Release, 6 February 2012 

He said that a statement of principle by the Council opposing coal mining or coal seam gas [CSG] extraction in the region would demonstrate its true concern for the environment.

“Not many people know that the Maryborough Basin, which is presently being prepared for coal mining and CSG in the Mary Valley, extends down to Point Arkwright. I’d be very concerned that open land in Verrierdale, for example, might be exploited for coal or gas.

“People south of Coolum might not know that there is another coal basin, the Nambour Basin, that covers the rest of the Sunshine Coast. These basins with coal reserves extend from the Blackall Range out to sea.

“It is essential for the future integrity of the Sunshine Coast environment and its attraction as a desirable region for people to live in and raise their families that the open land never be degraded by these industries.

“It is generally thought that the coal mining and CSG issues facing farmers and communities in the Darling Downs and NSW have nothing to do with the Sunshine Coast. But exploration has already extended as far south as Wolvi.

“It is no accident that mining magnate, Mr Clive Palmer, is eyeing off the Sunshine Coast.”

Dr McDonald said that he has repeatedly asked LNP MPs to oppose coal mining and CSG in the Mary Valley. He said their silence spoke loudly of their support for the mining industry in our neighbourhood.

He accused the LNP of hypocrisy. “The LNP yelled loud and long against the Traveston Dam and they joined with Mary River activists and The Greens in opposing the dam. Yet when coal companies are exploring the length of the Mary River for coal and CSG, their concern for the environment disappears.

“Every major tributary of the Mary River is being explored, and their concern over Traveston for the health of the Mary River and its unique species has disappeared.

“The Sunshine Coast Regional Council must stand firm against these activities extending into the Sunshine Coast and I urge Mayor Bob Abbott to send a clear message to Labor and the LNP that the Council will lead the community in opposition to mining the Coast.

“The Noosa Greens have actively opposed coal mining along the Mary River and its tributaries. We are concerned for the health of the river, the Mary River Cod, the lungfish and the Mary River Turtle. Coal mining and CSG will threaten the world heritage sea grasslands at the mouth of the river if coal mining is approved.”

Jim McDonald
Greens Candidate, Noosa

http://www.ga.gov.au/oceans/ea_ons_Nmbr.jsp

http://www.ga.gov.au/energy/province-sedimentary-basin-geology/petroleum/offshore-eastern-australia/nambour.html#map

http://www.ga.gov.au/provexplorer/provinceDetails.do?eno=22361

“http://www.ga.gov.au/energy/province-sedimentary-basin-geology/petroleum/offshore-eastern-australia/maryborough.html

http://www.nrm.se/en/menu/researchandcollections/departments/palaeobotany/collections/databases/jaustralia/jaustralialandsb.13786.htm

http://widebaygreens.org/2011/05/the-greens-call-for-a-moratorium-on-coal-seam-gas/

http://widebaygreens.org/2012/01/standing-up-for-the-noosa-biosphere-means-standing-up-for-the-sandy-straits-biosphere/

http://widebaygreens.org/2010/05/queensland-beautiful-one-day-open-cut-coalmines-the-next/

http://actiononcoalandgas.org/

I’d like to thank Bob Ansett for pointing out what the LNP’s website says about Noosa’s de-amalgamation because what the LNP spokesperson for Local Government, Gympie MP, David Gibson, says and doesn’t say on that website is quite different from the LNP’s actual policy.

As The Greens candidate for Noosa, I have called for a referendum to establish the ratepayers’ wishes as the primary step in giving the Noosa community the local government it really wants. This is a community-focussed process of decision-making and the role of the Government will be then to facilitate – through community consultation – any changes resulting from the community’s response.

The LNP proposal is for “an advisory poll of voters in any proposed new Local Government boundary” after a Queensland Boundaries Commissioner has prepared their “preferred options” for any changes after he or she has considered submissions from the community.

These are important differences that need to be understood by all the groups involved. The LNP offers the Noosa community an “advisory” role in a poll. The policy does not indicate what kind of poll that might be. The Greens have called for a local  referendum – let the community decide on deamalgamation not some appointed Commissioner fiddling with boundaries, “advised” by the community.

This “advisory poll” is something quite different from Mr Newman’s and Mr Gibson’s undertaking that “residents living within the proposed new council area will, by a simple majority, vote whether or not they wish to establish a new Noosa Shire Council”.

In designating a role for a Commissioner to make the decision on whether Noosa is to get the Council it wants, the LNP has developed a process that pushes the community to the side. LNP policy also will load the cost of a new Noosa Council on the residents: “ratepayers of any proposed new local authority would bear the full costs of any de-amalgamation.”

The Greens position is that if the community decides on separation the cost should be borne by the Government since it was the Queensland Government that forced amalgamation on us in the first place.

The Commissioner’s process of decision-making looks very like a “Yes Minister” scenario. I say that because the LNP policy includes the critical statement of principle: “The LNP has made it clear that its preference is for Queensland’s Councils to remain as  currently constituted to avoid any further disruption and cost for local communities.” With that statement goes any confidence that accommodating the electorate’s interests is anything more than a sop to the community’s wishes.

As a Noosa resident who favours de-amalgamation, I’m rather disappointed that Friends of Noosa and the Alliance find the LNP position so attractive since any close examination of the LNP policy shows that Campbell Newman and David Gibson have made an offer that is designed to fail the wishes of the Noosa community, and the LNP cannot be trusted to carry out their wishes.

Jim McDonald
Greens Candidate
Noosa
13 January 2012

The Australian Greens, the Labor government and the Independent MPs today announced an historic agreement on a climate action package that will put a $23 per tonne price on carbon pollution, as was first proposed by the Greens, support householders and invest billions of dollars in clean, renewable energy.

This package, which the Greens have helped shape, is the first vital step towards tackling the climate crisis and building a cleaner, healthier, more secure Australia for all of us.

Major steps forward on emissions reduction targets, support for renewable energy, energy efficiency and landscape carbon, closing coal-fired power plants, limiting the use of international offsets and a floor price mean that pollution cuts that were pushed into the distant future under the government’s original plans will now be pulled forward into the next few years.

While a climate action package designed by the Greens would have been more ambitious straight away, what we have achieved is a firm foundation for the future. Where the Rudd government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme acted as a ceiling on action, constraining our efforts for decades to come, this carbon price package acts as a platform on which stronger action can be built in the years ahead.

The carbon price agreement:

• Lifts Australia’s 2050 emissions target to 80%, lays the foundations for science-based climate action in the coming years and supports the effort to reach an ambitious global climate agreement;

• invests $10 billion in renewable energy, establishes ARENA, supports energy efficiency and starts planning for a 100% renewable energy future;

• helps the most vulnerable Australians;

• will begin to close coal-fired power stations and prevents the building of new commercial coal-fired power stations;

• ensures that emission intensive industry compensation will be based on rigorous independent analysis as soon as possible;

• limits the use of international offsets;

• begins to shift transport onto a cleaner base;

• makes voluntary action to cut emissions count; and

• invests $1.7 billion in protecting biodiversity and supporting farmers.

The Greens put climate action back on the political agenda after a federal election campaign during which it was a low priority for both Labor and the Coalition. By establishing a Multi-Party Climate Change Committee to deliver a carbon price as a condition for Julia Gillard to continue as Prime Minister, and by negotiating strongly and in good faith, the Greens have delivered a truly transformative package for the Australian community, economy and climate.

With this first step agreed, the Greens will continue to campaign for the much stronger action we need to effectively and efficiently tackle the climate crisis.

Your coverage on global emissions (SMH 9/7/11) highlights Australia’s percentage of the total world emissions (1.5%). What it fails to do is to compare our emissions with countries that emit a similar percentage. Australia’s population is 35% of France’s, 37% of the UK and Italy, 44% of South Africa and South Korea, 48% of Spain’s and 9.5% of Indonesia’s, yet shares the same percentage of the world’s emissions as each of these countries. These figures put Australia’s poor record on emissions into a context that requires a serious programme of emission reduction. I hope the carbon tax accelerates the moral obligation on all polluters to improve on this national disgrace.

Jim McDonald, Noosa Greens Candidate, 9 July 2011
Published Sydney Morning Herald, 11 July 2011

The Australian Greens are calling on the federal government to alter the powers of the Foreign Investment Review Board to include water licenses.

It comes amid an overwhelming response from everyday Australians toward the acquisition of prime farming land by foreign companies and shows the Federal government must act to ensure water allocation licences in the Murray Darling Basin and other part of the country are protected.

“Australians don’t want foreign companies buying up prime agricultural land so they can be turned into mining sites and they do not want water allocation rights acquired by parties not interested in protecting future flows,” the Greens’ water and Murray Darling Basin spokesperson, Sen. Sarah Hanson-Young, said today.

“The Greens want the federal government to publish a list of foreign owners of water licences, not just land ownership.

“We also want the Foreign Investment Review Board’s powers to be strengthened to include assessing water licenses, because currently the board does not examine this vital part of Australia’s future.”

Tributes are coming in acknowledging Bob’s great contributions over a number of areas. Greens members in the region will be aware of his great contribution  to the Party. Queensland Greens Senator-elect, Larissa Waters, said of  Bob, “he was such a grand figure in the Greens.”

Bob worked tirelessly and was my campaign director during the 2010  Federal election and Steve Haines’s director during the last State election. We learned much from him and we became good friends.

Our thoughts are with his wife, Jennie, and his daughters.

An obituary will be posted in due course.

Jim McDonald, Greens Candidate, Noosa State Electorate, 19 June 2011